MSI Press Blog

  Joella Goyette is the very creative illustrator of Ken Mogren's  Spunky Grandmas and Other Amusing Characters For more posts on Joella, click HERE . For more posts on Ken Mogren, click HERE . For more posts about Spunky Grandmas and Other Amusing Characters, click HERE . For other humor books by MSI Press, click HERE .

Summary of a review by Luca Lampariello, foreign language learning guru and tutor, of How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately by Boris Shekhtman: In a field where most books deal are colorful, well-produced, and full of information on one specific language, Boris Shekhtman’s  How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately  stands out for being almost the complete opposite—short, unassuming, and devoted to teaching the skills of language, rather than one language in itself. This unusual combination of factors leads to a book that is greater than the sum of its parts; a book that I believe every serious language learner should buy, read, and reread regularly. The book’s communicative tools shine as intuitive guidelines for improving language fluency  right now . With the advice in the book, you have everything you need to communicate your “current” level, navigate difficult conversations with natives, and  speak in a more fluid, natural way . Given the book’s short, compact f

  Cindy Alder, co-author of 10 Quick Homework Tips and 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents was cited in a Yahoo News article by Emily Pierce, " How Parents Can Offer Homework Help ." Read more posts about Cindy and her books  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter.

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic  addresses an area not well understood by many new authors: the author platform. What do we mean by that?  So, what is an author platform? An author platform is the ability to sell books because of who you are and who you can reach.   Jane Friedman provides a  commonly accepted definition of author platform : " Publishing or distributing quality work in outlets you want to be identified with and that your target audience reads. Producing a body of work on your own platform—e.g., blog, e-mail newsletter, social network, podcast, video, digital downloads, etc.—that gathers quality followers or a commun

Carl, so proud in his new, smaller, fully fitting Scott vest   Indeed, several months before Carl was diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer (stage 4), he lost quite a bit of weight. Nearly 50 pounds overnight. Now, he was big, very big. Any weight loss, in our thinking at the time, was to be applauded. And so, he ordered s smaller Scott vest and showed off his new slimmer self. (Not slim, mind you, but slimmer -- he was still nearly 300 pounds when he died.) What we did not realize -- and I certainly wish we had is that such a weight loss is not to be celebrated. It is a sign of dying, or at least, of advanced cancer. Instead of showing off his success ("achieved" -- more accurately, "experienced" -- though he was not on a particularly regimented diet), he should have been rushing to his doctor and asking, "What is wrong with this picture?" Perhaps, hopefully, the doctor would have figured out the cancer diagnosis early enough to do something about it,

  Meet our author-moms and author-teachers who have written absolutely splendid books for mothers about motherhood and parenting!  Cindy Alder & Patti Trombly 10 Quick Homework Tips 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents Read MSI blog posts about Cindy and Patti . Julia Aziz Lessons of Labor Read more posts about Julia HERE . Frank Bagdade \ I Love My Kids, But I Don't Always Like Them Read MSI Press blog posts about Franki HERE . Julie Gentile 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices IPPY Living Now Book Award Book Excellence Award How to Stay Calm in Chaos Honorable Mention, Kops-Fethering International Book Award Read MSI Press blog posts about Julie HERE. Dr. Emily Graves  How to Be a Good Mommy When You're Sick Read MSI Press blog posts about Emily HERE . Colette McNeil Choice and Structure for Children with Autism Gold award, Education, Reader Views Literary Awards  Silver award, Parenting, Reader Views Literary Awards Understanding the Challenge of "No" for Children with

  This is a series of Caturday posts on the topic of taking in feral cats .  General information (from pervious posts): For a few decades, we have rescued feral cats. In fact, with only one exception, our "domestic" cats have been ferals that we brought inside to join other ferals, already domesticated, as part of a bonded cat family. Right now, we have five cats (alas,  Murjan , the single non-feral cat we had, died from cancer last fall), all of whom get along pretty fabulously. Of course, all of that is easier said than done, and the bonding took time -- lots of it. Here are some of the things we did to create our cat family, some of which is not at all typical of what others have done, but it has worked for us. We don't trap the feral cats at all; we win them over and invite them in. We do this by feeding them a distance from the house and walking away, then moving the dish closer and closer to the house and walking less and less far away, until they are eating at ou